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A Florida judge has blocked Gov. DeSantis’ administration’s ban on transgender affirming care
A Florida judge blocked Gov. DeSantis’ administration’s ban on gender-affirming care Tuesday, saying “gender identity is real.”
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction for three Florida families who sued the state over its recent passing of SB 254, which bans gender-affirming care for youths under 18 years old. He called the ban “an exercise in politics, not good medicine.”
“Gender identity is real. The record makes this clear. The medical defendants, speaking through their attorneys, have admitted it. At least one defense expert also has admitted it,” Hinkle wrote in the ruling.
“I find that the plaintiff’s motivation is love for their children and the desire to achieve the best possible treatment for them. This is not the State’s motivation,” he continues.
In his 44-page ruling, Hinkle wrote that he found “no rational basis” for the ban, News Service of Florida reports.
The lawsuit, filed in March by seven parents of trans children, argued that the state’s ban on gender-affirming treatment, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, violates the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Of those seven families, three successfully requested and were granted the preliminary injunction.
Florida’s legislature pushed the measure, advanced by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration, into state law this spring. The Republican-led legislature also added language to expand the restrictions to trans adults.
“The plaintiffs’ adolescent children will suffer irreparable harm — the unwanted and irreversible onset and progression of puberty in their natal sex — if they do not promptly begin treatment with GnRH agonists,” wrote Hinkle.
“The treatment will affect the patients themselves, nobody else, and will cause the defendants no harm. The preliminary injunction will be consistent with, not adverse to, the public interest. Adherence to the Constitution is always in the public interest.”
Brevard County Rep. Randy Fine, who helped sponsor the legislation, took to Twitter to express his thoughts on Hinkle’s decision.
“It’s clear that Democrat Judge Hinkle is a science-denying wokeist whose radical order will soon be overturned by jurists who actually believe in science. We will not stop fighting to defend children from those like Hinkle who support child castration and mutilation,” Fine wrote in a particularly dumb tweet.
Meanwhile, Hinkle’s ruling drew praise from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like Southern Legal Counsel, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Human Rights Campaign.
“It’s important not to miss what the court also said, which is that the law and rules are likely to fail constitutional scrutiny once the court has the chance to rule on the merits. That is a hugely important part of the ruling which sends a strong signal to medical providers and families about the likely demise of this ban,” Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, wrote in a statement.
Florida’s ban on transgender-affirming treatments for youths punctuates longstanding efforts by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republicans to strip LGBTQ+ individuals of rights and freedoms through a “slate of hate” bills signed into law during 2023’s legislative session.
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